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Monthly Archives February 2014

New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller outlined a plan for a new non-profit, public-private corporation that was projected to spend $6 billion or more to redevelop impoverished areas of the state, including New York City, 46 years ago this month.

Rockefeller said the “revolutionary” Urban Development Corporation would have the authority to sell bonds to support the projects, obtain land through eminent domain and circumvent local zoning rules.

He expected the state public benefit corporation would leverage about $1 billion in public financing, with about $5 billion of private financing, to achieve the $6 billion in redevelopment. He cited urban rioting as one impetus for what he described as “drastic” measures...

Last week, New York State’s Home and Community Renewal (HCR) agency released a set of new regulations that aims to strengthen New York’s rent stabilization laws. The 27 new rule changes will make it more difficult for landlords to increase the rent and make it easier for tenants to fight back.

It’s been a landlord’s market these last couple of years. The demand and shortage of rental housing that followed 2007’s housing crisis gave landlords the opportunity to hike up rents in competitive markets like New York City, San Francisco, and Boston. While rental property owners have been able to enjoy record-low vacancy rates, they’ve also been using loopholes in state rent stabilization code that has allowed them to raise rents and evict tenants.

Manhattan real estate ended the year the way it began, at breakneck pace. Nearly 3,300 deals closed in the last three months of 2013, up 26.9 percent from the same period in 2012, according to Douglas Elliman’s fourth quarter report. The average sales price rose 5.3 percent to $1.538 million; the median, 2.1 percent. In short, if you’re a seller, it’s all good. Better if you’re a condo seller (a segment where median sales prices are up 14.3 percent). Best if you’re hawking new developments (up 32 percent, per the Corcoran Group’s survey, which describes the last three months as one of “extreme sales velocity”).

Inventory continues to be a problem, though, especially in the market’s most active segments...

In a development that couldn’t have possibly been predicted by anyone in the year 2014, a Village icon is being torn down and replaced by luxury condos. Although most locals probably have something of a love-hate relationship with the expensive (but fun! but expensive!) Bowlmor Lanes at 110 University Place, they will almost certainly think more fondly of the bowling alley now that word is getting out that new owner Billy Macklowe has plans to tear it down this summer and begin work on a brand new building. Macklowe acquired 110 University Place, which also houses a parking garage, in 2012. Bowlmor has operated in the space since 1938 and is, or will have been, the longest continuously running bowling alley on the East Coast, according to its website.